There was a small minority of planters and merchants, who regretted the violence and blind policy of the majority; but they would have risked their property, if not their lives, by venturing to express disapprobation. The excitement was prodigiously increased in 1832, by a formidable attempt at insurrection, in consequence of the numerous meetings and inflamed speeches of the planters, from which the slaves got the idea that the British government had made them free, and that their masters were acting in opposition to it. Such was the community into which the modified freedom called apprenticeship was ushered on the 1st of August, 1834. In an address delivered in Massachusetts, 1858, the Rev. Mr. Bleby said: "I was in Jamaica when slavery was abolished. This day, twenty-four years ago, I stood up late at night in one of the churches under my charge. It was a very large church; and the aisles, the gallery stairs, the communion place, the pulpit stairs, were all crowded; and there were thousands of people round the building, at every open door and window, looking in. It was ten o'clock at night, on the 31st of July. We thought it right and proper that our Christian people should receive their freedom, as a boon from God, in the house of prayer; and we gathered them together in the church for a midnight service. Our mouths had been closed about slavery up to that time. We could not quote a passage that had reference even to _spiritual_ emancipation, without endangering our lives. The planters had a law of 'constructive treason,' that doomed any man to death, who made use of language tending to excite a desire for liberty among the slaves; and they found treason in the Bible, and sedition in the hymns of Watts and Wesley; and we had to be very careful how we used them. You may imagine with what feelings I saw myself emancipated from this thraldom, and free to proclaim 'liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that were bound.' I took for my text, 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof! It shall be a jubilee unto you.' A few minutes before midnight, I requested all the people to kneel down in silent prayer to God, as befitting the solemnity of the hour. I looked down upon them as they knelt. The silence was broken only by sobs of emotion, which it was impossible to repress. The clock began to strike. It was the knell of slavery, in all the British possessions! It proclaimed liberty to 800,000 human beings! When I told them they might rise, what an outburst of joy there was among that mass of people! The clock had ceased to strike, and they were slaves no longer! Mothers were hugging their babes to their bosoms, old white-headed men embracing their children, and husbands clasping their wives in their arms. By and by, all was still again, and I gave out a hymn. You may imagine the feelings with which these people, just emerging into freedom, shouted--for they literally _shouted_,